TU‐A‐116‐11: Maximum Patient Skin Dose From Interventional Radiology Procedures and Definition of Alert Thresholds

Abstract

Purpose: To determine patient maximum skin dose (MSD) from interventional radiology procedures and define alerts using kerma‐area product (KAP) and cumulative air kerma (CK) values displayed by equipment manufacturers. Methods: In the framework of EURADOS WG12, nine European Countries participated with measurements of patient maximum skin dose performed during three different types of interventional procedures: neuro‐embolizations (NE), chemo‐embolizations (CE), and coronary angioplasties (PTCA). For each procedure, KAP, CK and fluoroscopy time (FT) values were also collected, as well as other parameters related to dosimetry, such as peak voltage, mAs value, filtration, beam entrance angle and total number of images. Correlations between MSD and displayed dose parameters were investigated. Results: In general, maximum skin dose is weakly correlated to both KAP and FT. Meanwhile, skin dose is quite well correlated with cumulative air kerma. In particular, the best correlation was found for CE procedures, for which relatively small entrance angles are used for the incident beam compared to PTCA and NE procedures. Conclusion: This work provides patient dose levels from some frequent interventional radiology procedures and indicates that CK could be used to define alerts helpful for operators to identify situations associated to high probability of exceeding the dose threshold for deterministic effects. However, definition of alerts applicable at European level remains difficult because of other factors affecting maximum skin dose, including operator's experience and methodology. Funded in the framework of EURADOS WG12.